Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Little Tiana getting back on feet with own heart
LARRY COPENHAVER
[email protected]
Tiana Lopez, who was hooked up to an artificial heart for three weeks at University Medical Center, is regaining the talking and walking skills she lost during six weeks of hospitalization.
Despite her developmental challenges, the nation's top heart surgeon said the 16-month-old is a leader in pediatric heart disease treatment.
"This little kid is a pioneer. She is breaking new ground in heart disease (research) that just hasn't been seen before," said Dr. Jack Copeland.
He is heralding Tiana for leading the way in using an artificial heart as a "bridge" to recovery - recovery on her own, diseased heart.
"To me, it's one of the most exciting things in my life," Copeland said yesterday after presenting the child and her parents, Ryan and Pat Lopez, with the same Berlin heart that pumped blood through her little body for three weeks.
The plastic device was mounted in the middle of a glass-covered shadow box. Around the artificial heart were mounted about a dozen small snapshots of the little girl. Paper hearts were glued around the photos.
When the artificial heart was removed from Tiana on March 1, Copeland called the child's recovery a miracle. Typically, only 2 percent to 5 percent of adult transplant patients' hearts recover on their own.
Another tiny patient at UMC, an 8-month-old girl who received a Berlin heart two weeks ago, also seems to be recovering from heart disease after the artificial heart was installed.
"We plan to remove that child's artificial heart (this) afternoon," Copeland said.
The 8-month-old girl's heart is not quite normal, but it's pretty close, Copeland said. "We think it's a recovered heart, but you never know until you go through the acid test."
Doctors must put the artificial device on standby for a few minutes while the patient's natural heart function is measured.
Copeland said the 8-month-old yesterday did 10 minutes, "and last Thursday we did 10 minutes, and a couple days before that we did five minutes. It's a progressive attempt to assess cardiac function."
"What we found in these two cases is that the heart continues to pump rather normally," he said.
"In Tiana's case, we had clearly decided that we were either going to do a transplant or a recovery. But what we hadn't decided was which of those two we were going to do. So we put her back on the transplant list, not knowing any better and thinking this heart is not going to recover.
"The reason she was on the artificial heart three weeks is, we had to convince ourselves that this was going to work," Copeland said. "We were skeptical, but it did work, and that was pretty exciting.
"We look carefully at every child to see if there is any chance of recovery, but it's hard to be 100 percent sure," he added. "Some of these hearts have a recoverability and some do not. The question is, what percentage is it?"
One thing is for sure, he said. Recoverability is much higher in young children than in adults.
"I think it's because children have better tissues, better blood vessels, and they can recover from trauma and injury better than adults."
Surviving with one's own, healthy heart is vastly preferred to having a heart transplant, said Dr. Richard Smith, director of UMC's artificial heart program. There is no comparison in the resulting quality of life.
Little Tiana getting back on feet with own heart
LARRY COPENHAVER
[email protected]
Tiana Lopez, who was hooked up to an artificial heart for three weeks at University Medical Center, is regaining the talking and walking skills she lost during six weeks of hospitalization.
Despite her developmental challenges, the nation's top heart surgeon said the 16-month-old is a leader in pediatric heart disease treatment.
"This little kid is a pioneer. She is breaking new ground in heart disease (research) that just hasn't been seen before," said Dr. Jack Copeland.
He is heralding Tiana for leading the way in using an artificial heart as a "bridge" to recovery - recovery on her own, diseased heart.
"To me, it's one of the most exciting things in my life," Copeland said yesterday after presenting the child and her parents, Ryan and Pat Lopez, with the same Berlin heart that pumped blood through her little body for three weeks.
The plastic device was mounted in the middle of a glass-covered shadow box. Around the artificial heart were mounted about a dozen small snapshots of the little girl. Paper hearts were glued around the photos.
When the artificial heart was removed from Tiana on March 1, Copeland called the child's recovery a miracle. Typically, only 2 percent to 5 percent of adult transplant patients' hearts recover on their own.
Another tiny patient at UMC, an 8-month-old girl who received a Berlin heart two weeks ago, also seems to be recovering from heart disease after the artificial heart was installed.
"We plan to remove that child's artificial heart (this) afternoon," Copeland said.
The 8-month-old girl's heart is not quite normal, but it's pretty close, Copeland said. "We think it's a recovered heart, but you never know until you go through the acid test."
Doctors must put the artificial device on standby for a few minutes while the patient's natural heart function is measured.
Copeland said the 8-month-old yesterday did 10 minutes, "and last Thursday we did 10 minutes, and a couple days before that we did five minutes. It's a progressive attempt to assess cardiac function."
"What we found in these two cases is that the heart continues to pump rather normally," he said.
"In Tiana's case, we had clearly decided that we were either going to do a transplant or a recovery. But what we hadn't decided was which of those two we were going to do. So we put her back on the transplant list, not knowing any better and thinking this heart is not going to recover.
"The reason she was on the artificial heart three weeks is, we had to convince ourselves that this was going to work," Copeland said. "We were skeptical, but it did work, and that was pretty exciting.
"We look carefully at every child to see if there is any chance of recovery, but it's hard to be 100 percent sure," he added. "Some of these hearts have a recoverability and some do not. The question is, what percentage is it?"
One thing is for sure, he said. Recoverability is much higher in young children than in adults.
"I think it's because children have better tissues, better blood vessels, and they can recover from trauma and injury better than adults."
Surviving with one's own, healthy heart is vastly preferred to having a heart transplant, said Dr. Richard Smith, director of UMC's artificial heart program. There is no comparison in the resulting quality of life.
